


Los Oprimidos

by BadlyWrittenFluff



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Meet-Cute, Mercenary!Anora, Rarepair, Skinner Is A Good Girl, but make it depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28595583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadlyWrittenFluff/pseuds/BadlyWrittenFluff
Summary: 'One minute I held the keyNext the walls were closed on me'orSomeone REALLY needs to pay attention to what their guards are doing and Skinner makes a wrong turn while up to, obviously, no good.
Relationships: Skinner/Anora Mac Tir
Kudos: 2





	Los Oprimidos

**Author's Note:**

> *hand waves the wonky timeline in this* let's just add this to the things we're pretending make sense in the world we live in yeah? ^^

  
Skinner roams where she isn't told. 

It wasn't forbidden! 

Just, not authorized. 

But Iron Bull wasn't their father

If he needed you, you did your job and if not you don't do something to get them kicked out of the city they were working in (Rocky!!) and you're fine by him. 

This was Grim's territory, his sort of work. 

Skinner was free to explore. 

Setting foot into the castle felt wrong. 

Anger flashes through, _guilt_ knowing the tiles she stepped on would be tirelessly cleaned by her people later onm

All nobles did was **_use_** and **t _ake!_**

So Skinner steals from them when she can. 

Gives back now that she had a better life. 

She couldn't be a Red Jenny. Too much bullshit. Not enough old-fashioned stabbing and pilfering.

He said she said got in the way when it was obvious if the noble was a noble they were a bastard.

None of them deserved what they got, unless it was a knife in a place that really hurt. 

Skinner makes a wrong turn. 

Castles were needlessly large. 

Skinner found herself in the deep dank of a prison instead of the rich spoils of a vault. 

Still, she goes through crates knowing even there would be things the less fortunate could benefit from, left to waste -

There was a woman behind the bars? 

Skinner didn't notice her until she pulled out her lockpick to loot the cells.

Her presence was small, and she stood there watching Skinner silently. 

_She_ was small. 

Skinner was an elf and this woman was a human but Skinner was bigger despite the woman's taller height. 

"Do you have any food?"

The woman speaks in a monotone and Skinner shivers at the realization. (Or was it the cold air drafting in from... somewhere?)

The woman was small in every way, because she was starving. 

This was a prison. What did skinner expect? For nobles to treat their prisoners well?

"No." Skinner answers, trick-flipping the lockpick in her hand once. 

"I see." The woman smiles. "The good stuff is to the left of the building. A floor down."

"How would you know?" Skinner asks, wondering how anyone could smile in her situation.

Skinner remembered being hungry way back when. She never felt anything but miserable.

"I used to be Queen." The woman states before sitting back down, onto the decrepit floor.

Skinner doesn't know what to say.

She'd heard of the landsmeet. The result. The queen overruled. The...was it a Teyrn? - her father - dead. It all went over Skinner's head. 

Why should she care about petty noble quarrels when a blight had been destroying everything she knew?

Skinner doesn't know what to say. 

So she doesn't say anything.

She loots the cells one by one instead. 

She finds bits of gold and loose tools that could turn into bits of gold. 

Skeletons. 

Stale bread. 

Skinner finds it in a wooden box, sealed tight. Dead critters surrounded it like they'd tried to claw their way in for sustenance, tried until their last breath. 

It was hard, hard enough to crack a tooth and crumbling as she touched it all at once. 

But it was most definitely bigger then whatever 'ration' they gave the queen-prisoner to keep her just barely alive. 

Skinner drops the bread onto the floor.

The next critters would have better luck... for awhile.

Skinner moves to the next cell.

Click.

It opens easily. Deft hands weren't the requirement in these parts apparently.

"What are you doing?" The woman asks.

"Taking stuff." Skinner answers, coming into her cell.

The woman watches her closely so Skinner turns her back.

The queen-prisoner stands just barely managing to stumble out of the place she'd been trapped in for who knows how long. 

Skinner expects her to be gone when she finally finished idly rummaging through some crate.

The blonde, frail woman stood outside the cell...waiting.

There was no way to avoid her so Skinner stepped out. 

"Thank you. I will never forget this. What is your name?" She is asked. 

Skinner felt disjointed by her gratitude, nearly blanching instead of answering. "I'm with the chargers. Bull's Chargers."

The queen-prisoner nods and her eyes flick down to something in Skinner's hand.

It was a broken amulet she'd found next to the crate, like someone had ripped it from the neck and tossed it the ground.

It seemed like something little rich girls would be given by family on their fourth birthday while Skinner recieved a 'special leaf' for hers.

"May I have... "

Skinner shoves it into her hand. Whatever it was, it wouldn't sell for anything now.

"I... don't need this." The woman shoves it back like it was plague-ridden. "I need your daggers. I can escape on my own. I know this castle but if I have to guess the place will be heavily guarded... "

"It is." Skinner confirms.

The only reason she was able to get anywhere was because of her stealth.

The woman stares at her expectantly. 

It pissses Skinner off.

Or, she felt that it should so she works to make the anger appear. 

Even after all this time the ex-queen thought she could just ask for something and proceed to recieve it. 

"People are on edge." Skinner speaks. Warns? Though, she has no idea why.   
"The guards were twitchy and we were _meant_ to be there... "

"I don't care." The queen-prisoner says bitterly. "I have seen the blight. I'd like to see food without spit in it now."

Skinner blinks but finds herself unsheathing her blades.

She didn't need them...

But they'd greatly improve the woman's survivability. 

As much of a noble the woman still presented herself her posture demure and ladylike while her face was covered in scratches and dirt

She was downtrodden. 

Thrown away and tossed aside by the nobility Skinner hated. 

She could say it served her right

But right had obviously went too far, never veering. 

Skinner didn't miss the ripped clothes...she wished she could because it made her feel sick but she saw the places that were torn. 

As much suffering as the woman may have caused being Queen... she wasn't that anymore and nobody deserved what those tears implied.

"Take them. But don't think they'll save you."

"Any risk is worth it." The not-queen bows her head.

_bows._

to _Skinner._

And makes her exit. 

Skinner is sure she'll die before she takes a hundred steps.

Skinner heads towards the vault to do what she came for also sure this was just one of the unique moments that happened during one of her Charger adventures, certain it would never come up again. Not in her life and not in her mind lest she downed a couple of drinks and took a trip down memory lane.

* * *

A few years later

Bull calls her and Dalish in

Says they got a strange letter and he didn't know who it was addressing

Skinner was sure it wasn't her

Who would even message her? It was probably just Dalish's old clan getting in contact from a new place or...

"To the beautiful elven girl from the chargers, who infiltrated a building a while back and set me free - I said I'll never forget you and I meant it. I pray you're doing good. I survived, as you can see, and am making a name for myself as a mercenary member. I'm smart and can handle myself in a fight okay since I've had lots of time to practice with the daggers you gave me. They keep me around for my brain however and not my place as a rogue. I will see you again one day. I don't know if you even want that but I have to thank the girl who gave me hope, and more than that - another chance at life, in person. Farethee well until then." Iron Bull read. "It's signed A."

Skinner grabs the paper from his hand when Dalish says it wasn't for her and they both turn to stare at her

There was other elven girls in the chargers but they didn't go on infiltration excursions. Hell, they hardly had those at all but bull had no way of knowing that wasn't what it was when the not-queen-not-prisoner used that very word.

"It's... " Skinner tries to hide her emotion but she never was good at doing it when it came to them. "It's for me."

Dalish grins. "I didn't know you were a little savior Skin. Got a boyfriend or a girlfriend we don't know about?"

"Girl." Skinner replies sharply without trying to. She scans over the words. Dalish had been teaching her how to read (read well, of course, she'd always had the basics down) over the years but it wasn't what she was doing now. She scanned over the letters making sure it was real.

She'd never gotten a letter before and she'd certainly _never_ been called beautiful.

"Well then. Whatever you did, sounds like it was a good thing. So good on ya Skinner." Iron Bull praises. 

Skinner looks up at her boss and the pride on his face makes her blush and stammer pathetically.

He was one of the best people she'd ever known. 

Skinner holds the letter closer to her heart than she let on while she shoved it into her satchel 'mindlessly.'

When she gets to her room she rushes to look at it again, smoothing out the wrinkles. 

'I will see you again one day'

Skinner doesn't want to put any thoughts into those words. 

But she does. 

For the four minutes she was in the woman's presence she could tell much about her character

This wasn't an empty sentence.

It was a promise.

……

A queen runs to the front of her cage and screams for her hero.

The elf reaches for the hands of her lover and they hold each other's fingers through the iron bars.

"I knew you'd come for me." The queen cries.

"Always will." The elf smirks. "Always here to steal your heart."

……

Perhaps it was her fault

Keeping the letter under her pillow like a homesick child, surely it made the woman appear in her dream. 

Skinner kept it there every night afterwards

Let it stay, not wanting the woman to stray from her mind again. 

Not until she kept her word

Not until then. 

* * *

A few years later, _again_. 

Once more Skinner finds her

But this time it wasn't by way of accidental meetings in a desolate place, or occasional flashes of blonde, happiness in her sleep. 

A, makes good of what she spoke, hiring them for a job. 

She sent three satchels worth of gold and promised more if she got the full team. 

Skinner was confused why they were going. They didn't need the money and

The chargers didn't work in the mundane much anymore 

Much as she wished they did

The longer they stayed with the inquisition the more Krem got them doing things like killing demons and scavenging dead war zones.

A bandit keep was... boring. Welcome, but boring and a full party was too extreme.

Bull slips her a note when nobody is watching, just as they reach their destination

It was the job request.... 

Signed 'A'

The woman was meant to brief them but once they got there Skinner rushes, marches ahead ignoring Rocky's 'uh oh. Some sod from her past?'

Skinner kisses her, doesn't know if she should or if it was smart

She wasn't smart like A, didn't know much of anything

But she kisses her because it felt right and then _it felt incredibly right._

The woman's hands drop from the folded position they were in, in front of herself and she grabs skinner's hair lifting her closer by it, pushing her deep into their kiss.

Skinner goes to touch her, touch _everything_ and is met with flesh in a surprising area. She hadn't even spared a solid glance before...

She pulls away and sees that the woman's blonde hair was all gone save for a strip going across the center.

A disguise. And was that a fake mole? 

A, she finds Skinner's shock at the discovery amusing and busies herself gently caressing her hands through Skinner's ragged locks before she says her first words to her in many years. "There are no bandits, by the way. Well... there were but my team and I took care of them already."

She sounded, looked

Different

Dirtied from her flight

But no longer 'defiled.'

The power she had within showed on the outside too, now. 

As for sustenance? She was only hungry for Skinner based on the way she steals pecks to Skinner's jaw and cheek, grip inescapable (why would Skinner fucking want to?) while she continued speaking. 

'My company is letting me go actually'

Skinner tilts her head to give her more access and also question her. 

'They don't want to keep me when they know I belong elsewhere' A, lingers on a spot near her neck. 

Skinner trys not to moan, some backlogged part of her mind aware the Chargers were still there

'I'm coming with you whether you like it or not'

Skinner growls in delight

'I have to thank the woman who gave me hope properly and I can't do that in the middle of an alleyway'

Skinner's eyes flash to her, her head snapping fully up. 

A, looks at her a gorgeous smile, _her_ gorgeous smile being given to everyone lucky to see it but mostly to Skinner. 

"You're fucking beautiful." Skinner states in utter awe, announces to whoever would hear it, but mostly to A. 

A, blinks. Blinks back a tear born of shock. "…Thank you. I've never been told that."

Skinner knew she had

But never in the way Skinner meant it. 

The beauty of people who'd gone through things and come out stronger was always prettier than gold bunting and silk dressing. 

"So you're Skinner's mysterious lover." Dalish laughs, breaking the magical tension in the air. "What's your name, stranger?"

"A." The woman answers, her accent overtly posh and fake. Skinner turns to her friends. Their faces were a mixture of confusion and joy.

"Just A?" Stiches pushes.

"I'd like it to be A, with the Chargers if your boss would agree." A, turns to the Iron Bull and he laughs boisterous and loud

"You said you're smart right? This team could use some more of that!"

"Harhar, you ass!" Krem joked back.

Skinner and A's hands gravitate towards one another and A, easily slides into the bantering that made a Charger a Charger. 

* * *

It was never made official

But A, joined them on their adventures and went where Skinner went always. 

While she remained inconspicuous to people who were only ever allowed to see glimpses of her

Some of the crew figure the big secret out. 

None ever call her by anything but A

Any other name had already died. 

She was still a noble

Skinner saw it in the way she walked, talked.

That never died, even when the titles did. 

All nobles were bastards

It was true but

Some of Skinner's best friends were too.

She definitely and decidedly did _not_ want to stab her lover and as a matter of a fact

The only stabbing she did around A, was Red Templar stabbing. 

Her fantasies towards A, tended towards the more sexually deviant than the violent ones she was used to having in the end

And they ended each of their days full now that their lives had completely intertwined.  
….

The end. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading until the end! I hope you enjoyed some part of this story and have a happy new year my friend!


End file.
